3 So what’s going to happen this season? As ever, the cast have been sworn to secrecy on plot details. “It’s getting colder,” teases Rory McCann, aka The Hound. “There’s definitely something brewing…” Perhaps Jon finding out that he is, in fact, a Targaryen – and his inner dragon is ready to wake up…

4 ‘Winter is coming’ has been the motto of House Stark for the past six series, but now the snow has finally descended on Westeros – bringing with it the White Walkers. This battle of the living versus the dead is described by Jon in the series’ trailer as “the only war that matters”.

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5 Think nothing’s going to top last season’s brutal, war-torn episode Battle Of The Bastards? Think again, as we’re promised multiple epic battles this year, including a huge naval scrap and a sequence that required 20 stuntmen to be set on fire simultaneously.

6 Fans will also be thrilled to see characters who’ve been kept at different ends of Westeros unite. “There are a whole bunch of meetings that people have been waiting a long time to see,” reveals executive producer DB Weiss.

7 Among the new faces is Jim Broadbent – he plays an arch-maester who’ll be training Sam in Westeros’ fantastical history at the Citadel in Old Town.

8 Members of Snow Patrol and Coldplay have made cameos before, but this season features the biggest musical guest yet – Ed Sheeran. He’ll be singing in a scene featuring Arya Stark.

9 Season six of Game Of Thrones was so massive that it won 12 Emmy awards, taking its total to 38 – breaking the record for number of wins for a scripted show previously held by sitcom Frasier.

10 Savour this series, as the eighth and final run will consist of only six episodes and may not air until 2019. But George RR Martin’s last book in the series is titled A Dream Of Spring, so there might be a happy ending after all…